


The Betrayed

by neichan



Category: The Unit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-26
Updated: 2006-04-26
Packaged: 2019-02-05 16:42:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12798369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neichan/pseuds/neichan
Summary: Tiffy isn't holding it together so well. And Mack is paying the price. Very short piece that was stuck in my brain.





	The Betrayed

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Haven, the archivist: This story was originally archived at [Fandom Haven Story Archive (FHSA)](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Fandom_Haven_Story_Archive), was scheduled to shut down at the end of 2016. To preserve the archive, I began working with the OTW to transfer the stories to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2017. If you are this creator and the work hasn't transferred to your AO3 account, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Fandom Haven Story Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/fhsa/profile).

"Don't do this." Mack felt the tears flow down his face. It wasn't the first time Tiffy, his wife, tried to pull this. The time when she was his best friend was long past. And he missed it, ached for it. He missed the way they had been, Tiff and Mack against all comers, a united front.

 

"I am your wife." She said, her blonde hair flying, brilliant with her rage, color rising in her cheeks. The nail file she held in front of herself, like a dull knife, threatening him. "You married me!" Even she didn't know why she was doing it. But, she couldn't stop it. It flowed out of her. Vitriol. Hate. Frustration. Rage. Directed at the person closest to her.

 

"You know why." The tone was pleading, he hated how he sounded. He didn't sound like a man, a soldier, or special forces. He sound like a cry baby. Tiffy always could reduce him to tears. He prayed she would remember. Remember what he'd done for her. When she needed him to. When she had begged him for help. He didn't want to be the one who said it out loud. He wanted her to recall on her own, to relive it, to go back to the time when they were best friends. When he had asked her, no...agreed to her request to marry her. When ~she~ had asked him. And he had agreed. Because she needed a man's help, and the only other man in her life had abandoned her.

 

"Ghod. I hate you some times. I am fucking trapped in this ghoddamned loveless marriage. With a husband who doesn't love me. Who won't be my husband, who won't go to bed with his own wife." Tiffy raged, spittle flying from between her clenched teeth. "My luck I get saddled with a man who isn't really a man." He flinched when those words hit him.

 

He reached for her and she actually jerked back, away from him. "Don't touch me, faggot." She snarled. "How long would you be in if I told them you were a damn fairy? You'd be out on your lily white ass. Faster than you could count. What would the colonel do?" Her question morphed into a sneer, as he stared at her, wondering where all of it was coming from. She waved the file at him, the fury in her eyes turning them almost red. He nearly moaned with the pain of it. How she could think he wanted to hurt her? How could she want to hurt him?

 

"I...I never lied. You knew. Before. You ~knew~." Mack said, his voice small. He knew a dozen ways to kill a man with just his bare hands, but he couldn't even touch her, couldn't even cover her mouth and stop the hatred from spilling out and stabbing into his skin with razor-edges. He was almost surprised he wasn't bleeding, wounded visibly, but the few stabs she'd taken at him, he had blocked. Now it was her words that were wounding him. Nothing showed, nothing beyond the tears, the grimace on his face. and the way he was standing, hunched, begging, hurting. Loving her even as she tore him apart.

 

"Yes, I knew. I thought I could fix you." She spat it out at him. Flinging it back in his face. "You used me to get into the military. To stay in it. And then you decided to volunteer to be a Ranger. Now we are watched so closely I can't do anything. I can't find any one to love me. Because if I did they would find out. One of the wives would turn me in if they knew I was having an affair. And that would cost you your career."

 

He stared at her, his fists clenching. He hadn't used her. Single men went into the service every day, and stayed single. He had married her because she asked him to. She begged him to help her. To get her away from...him. The man who had hurt her, who had hit her, the man who's child she had carried when Mack married her. A child that had been quietly lost in her third month, some pain, some bleeding, and then only Mack to wonder at the life lost, wonder what the child would have been like, the daughter his wife had miscarried.

 

Tiffy never said a word about her ordeal. About her daughter who would never be born. She'd lost the baby, but not until after they were married. After it was too late for her to rethink her options. She hadn't wanted to be a divorced woman. She didn't want her family to look down on her.

 

"I..." This woman was the only person who could do this to him. Reduce him, the normally controlled, in control second lead of his unit, to speechlessness. He hadn't done anything wrong. She'd needed him, he'd been her best friend. She always was aware of his preferences. He could function with women, and function well, but he only ever fell in love with men. Usually men he couldn't have. He could count on one hand the number of times he'd actually been with a man. Put those up against the hundreds of times with women...and still Tiff flung it in his face. Those five times he'd crossed the street, batted for the other team. And told her. Shared it with her. He never should have been that weak. He never should have told anyone. Especially not her.

 

Becoming a part of the Ranger Unit, meeting his team, had changed his life. It had changed further when he met Bob Brown, when the younger man joined the Unit. Younger, greener, a little hot-headed, but disciplined when he had to be, dedicated. With hazel green eyes that ran the spectrum from nearly yellow to brown to definitely blue at different times, in different lights. Mack had never seen eyes like that. And within a week Mack fell in love. With a teammate. A married teammate. Shit.

 

How Tiffy had found him out he couldn't guess. He hadn't told her about his feelings. But she had. And she wasted no time confronting him. Asking him what Bob would think of him if he knew why Mack was looking out after his ass. Mack cringed. Tiff didn't know as much as she thought she did. She didn't know what they went through to prepare them for every eventuality. He'd had his hands ~on~ Brown's spectacular ass. He'd had his dick...Mack closed his eyes hard, turning away. He didn't want to think about it, not around her.

 

He had to leave. He couldn't stay. He didn't slam the door as he left Tiffy standing in the center of the living room, nail file held up at shoulder height, as if she would stab at him even when he was leaving. He had to go. He'd learned his lesson. He wouldn't give her more ammunition to use against him. He'd never confirm or deny how he felt about his newest teammate.

 

It was raining out. And Mack was grateful. It hid the tears running down his face.


End file.
